Hire Cleveland’s Cop Cadets NOW!

Cleveland may have spent six months and more than $700,000 to prep 40 new police cadets, only to have them end up patrolling streets in the suburbs or out of state.The city, squeezed for cash, laid off the cadets Friday, immediately after their graduation from the department’s six-month academy. They were sworn in, but could have to wait up to 18 months for retirements and resignations to make room on the payroll, said Steve Loomis, their union president.

Dayton is behind the curve on hiring police cadets right now and retirements are happening faster than we’d like. Besides saving a boatload in training costs- we could deploy these officers almost instantly.

But, like all good fire sales, this requires fast action- something our city has only shown it’s capable of when paying off political patrons or doing deals that benefit those in power. Here’s a chance to save the taxpayers a bunch of money.

Want to lay odds that the city can’t manage to hire a single one of these cadets?

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5 Responses

SueJune 30, 2011 / 10:19 am

Of course they won’t hire any of these already-trained (albeit not the “Dayton way”) officers.

They are required by the consent decree they engineered to first go through the list for applicants they are now ranking ( including using some kind of “randomization” method) based on oral interviews of 512 applicants whose test scores have been wiped out by the Dept. of Justice, making the 1 to 5 rated oral interview the only score that counts. All of the rating was done by city employees, one being the highest employee of the City Commission itself. So much for civil service as insulating hiring from politics and politicians. Also I believe the consent decree gives preference to certain individuals who received the monetary payouts of around $20,000 each for not passing, or not taking, the last exams.

How do you separate out 512 applicants, one by one on the basis of merit as required by the Charter, based only on such subjective interviews? What do you end up with? What a mess, for failing to validate the 2005-6 tests before giving them, as had been done every time before, for 20+ years.

David EsratiJune 30, 2011 / 10:33 am

Well Sue, it must be what the voters want- because they voted for Dean over me, Nan over me, Joey over me….

We need to hire now! Not next year- we need feet on the street.

And this would save money- Cleveland also probably managed to train some minorities too… oh well.

truthJune 30, 2011 / 1:38 pm

Hiring practices in law enforcement and fire need to obviously be based on the quality of the applicant, nothing more, nothing less. High liability and life or death services need to be managed properly, and the failure of the DOJ to step back and realize this, is a huge problem.

But what is Dayton forced to do? Dumb down the test even more to get the “numbers”. They have already made the test so that a bottom of the barrel set of brains can pass it. Is that who you want dealing with your life, property, or family?

What this “numbers” game causes is nothing but problems. You are hiring less qualified and, like it or not, candidates that wouldn’t get hired elsewhere…not based on race, but based on the competitive and quality based nature of a police or fire hiring processes. I have seen many public servants come and go. It just so happens, that many of the candidates, regardless of color, that were hired outside of normal practices, and hired because of favoritism, race, and other reasons, cost their municipalities more money in the long run because of the liability and legal situations that arose from their termination. Many dealt with criminal cases and liability issues. The cities and townships then have to pay the price twice for poor hiring practices. Once during the payment settlement of lawsuits, and second, because they have to go through the complete hiring and training process again to fill that vacant position once they are terminated.

Until this gets back to providing quality service to citizens and not managing some false philosophy of forces matching demographics, you will continue to see the quality of service fall due to compromising hiring standards.

Ice BanditJuly 2, 2011 / 9:32 am

…the consent decree gives preference to certain individuals who received the monetary payouts of around $20,000 each for not passing, or not taking, the last exams. (Sue)

…who says this ain’t a great country? Why, if the Old Bandito got 20K for every test he flagged, he’d be in the Donald’s Penthouse Suite at the Trump Casino smoking stogies out of Fidel’s personal stash and playing naked Twister with the topless showgals from the Bellagio. Fact is, this latest in a long line of government failures has put the Gem City in the national spotlight, from Fox News to the National Policy Institute. As one wag summarized the situation, “Dayton is putting guns in the hands of the least qualified. What could go wrong?” So Sue is correct, dear David. If the Cleveland recruits all had PhDs in criminal justice from Harvard and were alternates to the Olympic team, it matters not. The people of Dayton are merely sacrificial offerings on the altar of political correctness, considered by Washington too incompetent to recruit their own constabulary. On the count of three, let’s all throw our hands in the air and say “tohellwithit.” One….Two…..

David EsratiJuly 2, 2011 / 9:43 am

@ice “ToHellWithIt”

This is the main reason that I’m trying to create a way so that the voters can recall the commission or petition to change the charter. So far- I see $230 donated toward the $3250 it’s going to take.